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Vaddey Ratner

Biography

Vaddey Ratner

Vaddey Ratner was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. After four years, having endured forced labor, starvation, and near execution, she and her mother escaped while many of her family members perished. In 1981, she arrived in the U.S. as a refugee not knowing English and, in 1990, went on to graduate as her high school class valedictorian. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Cornell University, where she specialized in Southeast Asian history and literature. In recent years she traveled and lived in Cambodia and Southeast Asia, writing and researching, which culminated in her debut novel, IN THE SHADOW OF THE BANYAN. She lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Books by Vaddey Ratner

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins the night her father comes home bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the remaining vestige of childhood --- the mythical legends and poems her father told her.